by Bex Dane
I turned my back on her and walked out. I don't do lying, crying bitches.
"Adios, Aida."
I marched out the door without a word to Rogan or the diva's stupid husband.
***
In the hallway, I slammed open a side door leading to a balcony. The sea air hit me and I sucked it in. Anger roiled up in my stomach. What the hell just happened?
What was it about her? I tamped it down with one breath. Anger was a wasted emotion that clouded the judgment. I needed to think clearly.
The toothpick poke in my gut had grown to the size of a skewer and moved up to my heart. A tiny boat braving the waters of the Gulf Coast. A road trip through the South and up the East Coast. A young girl who sang like an angel.
A promise to a girl that I would find her mother.
A promise I had failed to keep.
Magdalena. The girl I'd disappointed.
Not sure what I was doing, I pulled up my phone and dialed a number I hadn't called in twenty-two years.
No answer.
Fuck. I leaned my arms on the rails of the balcony and tried again to stuff down the emotions. They only sucked you dry and killed.
I googled her name. Jesus. Red carpets. Outdoor arenas. Rubbing shoulders with people so famous even I had heard of them. Gaspar Evaristo. My mother loved him. Pictures of her on the stage wearing heavy makeup and a green dress. She sat on her knees crying before a man dressed like a viking whose mouth was open as he sang. A Latina Choice nomination for a pop song...
A call came through on my phone. Soledad. Calling me back.
"Hello."
"Primitivo?"
No one had called me that in a long time. The skewer in my heart poked out a gaping hole.
"Yes." Despite everything, I was still Primitivo.
"Did you call me?"
My heart raced. Shut that shit down, Falcon. "What became of Magdalena?" I couldn't keep the intensity from my voice.
"I… You never asked. All this time."
I didn't ask. I didn't want to know. "I'm asking now. What became of Magdalena?" My voice stung with urgency.
She whimpered. "She's a singer."
"What name does she go by?"
"She wouldn't want me to tell you. She's put her past behind her."
"What name does she go by?"
"Why do you need to know?"
"Why? Because I'm on an island called St. Amalie where six women were executed on the dock. I got a crazy bitch who won't answer any questions, and my gut is telling me to call you. So you wanna tell me what name she goes by so I can sort this out?"
After a heavy sigh, she said, "She is known as Aida Soltari."
Goddamn Magdalena lied to me. Sat right in front of me and lied through her teeth.
"Is she okay?" I barely heard Soledad's question. My mind was racing.
"Yeah. I saw her. She's okay."
"Please protect her, Tivo."
"Why do you say that?"
"There was a bomb at her last concert in Zurich. She went to St. Amalie to recover from the stress. And now there's been a shooting. I'm worried about her. She's fragile. She'll need support."
Again with the fragile crap. "She has a husband."
"He can't protect her. Not like you can. I don't trust Thorne anyway. Something shady about him."
I thought the same of the French guy. "Alright. I'll see what I can do."
I slammed the balcony door open and stormed right back to her room. I banged hard on her door. Rogan opened it. I pushed through and charged to her room.
She had returned to her chaise lounge and wasn't wearing the glasses anymore. Looking at her now, I saw it. She had Magdalena's wide eyes, too big for her face, the petite nose, round cheeks and the square chin I remembered.
"You lied to me."
She gasped and put her hands to her chest. "Get out!"
"You fucking lied to me."
"I did not," she retorted.
"You are not Aida Soltari."
"I most certainly am." Her hands balled into fists.
"You are Magdalena Esperanza." I said it mean and harsh. I supposed I should've been "gentle" like they told me, but she pissed me off with her bullshit.
Her head jerked back. "I am not."
"You lie. You lie as the day is long."
"Get out." She stood up and pointed at the door.
"You know who I am," I said, still angry.
She didn't answer.
"You recognized me right away. That's why you stared so long."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." She crossed her arms over her chest and refused to make eye contact with me.
"Really? You're not the teenage girl who sang Cucurrucucu Paloma on a panga in the Gulf of Mexico?"
Oh that got her. Her face crumbled and all her bravado evaporated.
It got me too because my anger dissipated. I took a step toward her.
My gaze slid to the door to find two men watching us. Her husband's neck was long and stiff like a peacock who had just been plucked. Rogan didn't reveal his reaction, but he never missed a detail. He'd cataloged every second in his memory.
"We need a minute alone," I said to them.
Her husband looked to her. Without lifting her eyes to him, she brushed him off with a wave of her hand. "It's fine, Thorne."
He nodded and closed the door, but I had to question a man who would so easily give in to a request like this.
Once the door closed, I took a deep breath and fought back the overwhelming urge within me to cut and run. I'd already hidden from this for years. Time to face the truth.
"Yo soy Primitivo de la Cruz," I said softly. I am Primitivo.
Her shoulders stiffened and her hands shook.
"Tu eres Magdalena Esperanza." You are Magdalena.
Her head moved slowly from side to side. "Ya te olvidé," she whispered. I've already forgotten you.
"No." There's no way she could've forgotten me nor I forgotten her. It was too big a moment in both our lives.
"Sí. Ya te olvidé," she repeated.
This girl had a serious case of denial going on. "I promised to find your mom and bring her to you. I never did that." Difficult words to say, but needed to be said.
She continued to shake her head.
"I looked everywhere. Searched all of Mexico. Covered the ground in Texas. Claudia's gone."
"Yesterday is gone." She turned her back to me and stared at a point far in the distance.
Was she even listening to me? I was making a huge effort to talk about shit I'd rather eat dog poop than talk about, and she kept denying it and speaking nonsense. "I avenged Claudia's death. Manuel and his men are dead."
"You shouldn't have bothered."
"They deserved to die for what they did to her."
"You wasted time and lives. She's not dead."
Aida Soltari lived in a fantasy world. The shooting didn't happen? Her mother never died? Whatever. Her insanity was her problem. Not mine. She needed to get a grip on reality. I just needed to say my piece and move on.
"Take my word I did all I could."
She spun and faced me again. "Your word is nothing."
I deserved that. I'd broken a promise, but at least she'd admitted to knowing me.
A long silence stretched out between us. Agony, frustration, and fear simmered in her eyes. She pushed it at me, expecting me to take it. Nope. Not my problem.
My eyes felt drawn to the closed door. The urge to bolt and never return grew undeniable in my chest. I hated this and everything about it. She was right. The past was gone. Today I had a job to do and bad guys to hunt down. What I did not have to do was convince a deluded diva that people had died.
An anguished cry came from her mouth, and she flopped forward. Her forehead landed on my chest. What the everlovin' fuck?
Her shoulders heaved with a big breath in. Her whole body shook as the air came out in short bursts.
Oh shit. Tears. My cue to leave.
>
Her hands gripped my biceps and squeezed. The feminine scent of her hair hit my nose. My hands came up instinctively, knowing she expected me to comfort her. She'd lost her mother, and it was my fault. But I couldn't touch her. The second I did, this became mine. The grief fell on me and I accepted it. Never. Grief was a wasted emotion. She said the past wasn't real? Emotions weren't real either. This was all a huge show put on by a world-class actress.
"I have to go, Aida. You give this to your husband. You talk it over with him."
She nodded into my chest.
"Goodbye." I stepped back and she raised her head, shocked eyes staring at me. What? Nobody had pushed her tears away before?
Welcome to reality, Aida. I don't want your shit. Find someone else to cry on. It's just snot on my shirt.
Chapter 6
Racing out of that room like a bat outta hell, I didn't stop to look at her husband chatting with Rogan in the living room of the suite. What did they know? Nothing. Nothing about Primitivo and Magdalena. If the husband didn't spill, Rogan wouldn't even know about the bomb at her concert in Switzerland.
I stopped at the door and turned back to glare at her husband. "You don't have a security detail on her?"
The French guy stood and faced me. He straightened his jacket. Who wears a goddamn jacket in the Caribbean? "I'm her security detail."
I laughed. "You? A fart could blow you down. Where's your weapon?"
His face twisted in all kinds of confusion. What the hell did she see in this guy? "I don't carry a weapon."
"Exactly. She has no security. She needs a team implementing counter surveillance, decoys, and alternate routes. She needs twenty-four seven halls and walls, ballistic doors, panic buttons... Have you done due diligence on all her PAs, stylists, girlfriends, the staff of all the venues? Does anyone do social media analysis for her?" Shit. She needed a lot of work.
Rogan kept quiet, but his rapid eye movement showed him parsing the pieces together. She was at risk, and this guy was shady as hell.
French guy extended his peacock neck again. "She would never allow that. It's frowned upon in the opera world. One does not flaunt their status or show up with bodyguards. It shows a lack of trust."
What a sack of bullshit this guy spewed. As bad as her. Two totally clueless, superficial artsy types. Too worried about impressions to take basic safety precautions.
"From what I can see, she's been nominated for a Latina Choice Award. She's crossed out of the opera world into celebrity pop-culture. A place loaded with predators and criminals out to get her."
"This is true." He chewed his thumbnail like a child.
"She's also denying a bomb went off in Switzerland." I threw this out like a dart.
Rogan's jaw grew tight. Yeah, French guy didn't share the details, did he? What the fuck was this guy's deal? He allows her to talk behind closed doors with a man like me, and he doesn't tell Rogan key information about a terrorist attack?
"She says there was no massacre on the dock yesterday. She's unstable. And you let her call the shots? Stand up and be a man and take care of your woman."
He finally showed the proper reaction by pulling his shoulders back and getting a backbone. "I take care of her fine. What is your name anyway?"
Well, shit. We hadn't even met, and I'd nailed him as the perpetrator right away. "Falcon."
"I am Thorne. I take good care of Aida. The bombing and this tragedy all developed recently. But I hear you. She does need increased security."
The wrinkles in his forehead made him appear appropriately concerned.
"Good." At least we agreed on something.
"What do you suggest?" he asked.
Oh shit. I hadn't thought of that. Rogan could hook her up with some of his connections.
"We'll do it." Rogan stood to join the conversation.
"No, we won't," I answered back. We were about to cut and run and leave this mess behind. Let some overpriced celebrity security firm take her on. Rogan didn't do international work anyway, and an opera star most likely had to travel.
"Not a team out there tighter than ours. We'll keep her safe," Rogan said.
Shit. He'd picked up she meant something to me. But he spoke the truth. No one better than Z Security to protect her.
"I like it." Her husband smiled at Rogan. "Draw up a proposal and we'll negotiate a contract."
"Falcon, you head up the task force." Rogan turned to me.
"Fuck no." Goddamn. He'd already committed.
"No way in hell." Aida's voice sounded from the bedroom door. She stomped over to her husband and got right up in his face. "I don't want him on any task force. I don't want a security detail."
With her hips and ass in full motion, she was bigger than him. He was tall and lean and she was wide and curvy. A total mismatch.
"Honey…"
God, he turned into an even bigger wimp in front of her.
"No. The theatre is a refuge. We don't bring threats in with us."
"This is about keeping the threats out of the theatre. They blasted their way in last week. We need to take action." Thorne gave her a weak response.
"It was a freak accident. It won't happen again."
"And the shooting on the dock yesterday isn't related?" Thorne finally challenged her. Good.
"No." She threw up her hands in frustration. "It's got nothing to do with me. Terrorism is everywhere. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You are all overreacting."
I had to laugh at that. The queen of drama calling the kettle black.
"It's done." Thorne crossed his arms over his chest. "Rogan and Falcon will provide security for you. We'll make it work behind the scenes. Most people won't even notice." Thorne gave her a forced smile.
"We'll be invisible," Rogan said. His specialty. But I knew he wouldn't be traveling with us. Rogan would keep his ass in Boston to be with Tessa and his family.
Thanks for tossing me into the gator pit, brother. Invisible was not my forte. My specialty included intimidation with size, force, and a powerful rifle aimed at your forehead.
Whether we did this incognito or not, Magdalena Esperanza, or Aida Soltari, just became my problem again. For the second time in my life, I was responsible for someone completely out of my comfort range.
Chapter 7
Aida (Magdalena)
"Week-two status update." Falcon's burly voice hit my ears as he flanked my right side. We'd arrived at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York one hour early, so he could do his obsessive checking of the place before the dress rehearsal tonight.
"Are you speaking to me?" Falcon hadn't said anything directly to me since the one-week status update where he scolded me and repeated his asinine list of schoolmaster-like rules.
"Security detail is ninety percent in place. Blaze and Diesel have a team on halls and walls. I'm on excursions."
"Lucky me." My dress rehearsal for the Met's production of the opera Aida counted as an excursion? The vocabulary Falcon used baffled me, as I was sure mine did him. I avoided asking him about it because I would not be the one to initiate a conversation that might bring up the subject of the last twenty-two years. If he served in the military, good for him. Inconsequential to today and the performance I needed to focus on.
"We vetted your inner circle. Thorne, Leticia, and Babette check out clean." He kept talking to me like a commander directing his troops.
"Of course." He had interrogated my husband, makeup artist, and the head of wardrobe for the Met like criminals.
"You frigid?" he blurted out.
"What?"
"Two weeks, one call to your husband. No titty pics, no phone sex. Frigid."
Ugh. What an ass! "That's none of your business. Continue with your report."
He narrowed his eyes, like he was trying to figure me out, then shook his head and moved on. "The cast is sixty-four percent vetted. There's eight hundred fucking people involved in this production." He spoke to the air like he was co
mplaining to an imaginary Army buddy by his side.
"Well, yes, my dear. The Metropolitan Opera does everything on a mega scale. The opera of Aida has the largest cast of any of the operas they perform. Plus the orchestra, stagehands, and directors. It's an epic wonder." I swept my hair to the side as we approached my dressing room.
"We posted some false appearances for you on your website."
I stopped short and peered up at him. "You did what?"
"To throw off a tail." He kept scanning the area instead of giving me his full attention.
"I understand, but I have fans who follow me. What if they show up at those fake shows? I see no need to create confusion."
He looked down at me for the first time since we'd exited the vehicle he used to transport me to the venue. His gaze traveled over my breasts and stopped at my fists on my hips. "Do not question me or my methods. Follow along and don't say shit about it."
How rude? Falcon was consistently ill-mannered and uncouth. Thank goodness we'd reached my dressing room, and he'd be forced to wait outside.
Matteo, my co-star in the show, walked toward us, arms open wide. "Aida, my love. Are you prepared to die for me again tonight?"
Falcon moved his massive body in the way to block his hug.
Matteo stepped back and glared up at Falcon, who stood a foot taller than him. "Excuse me? Who is this?"
"Matteo, this is Falcon." I had to step out from behind Falcon to reach Matteo. "He's providing security for me."
His eyebrows rose as he inspected Falcon from head to toe. He was underdressed for the Met in his perennial black cargo pants and tee. He'd combed his hair back and tied it. His goatee appeared trimmed, but he still looked like a pirate you'd see on the high seas. "Yes, I heard about the bomb and the horrible incident in the Caribbean. I'm so sorry for you," Matteo said.
"Thank you so much." I turned to face Falcon. "I've known Matteo since Juilliard. He's my Radames. Don't stand between us." My fists were back on my hips and Falcon glanced at them. The corner of his mouth twitched up. What was it about my hips? "Did you hear me?"
His eyes moved back to Matteo, who spun my shoulders so I faced him.